Driven by the growing demand for new diabetes and obesity drugs, contract development and manufacturing organization CordenPharma Group — with 11 facilities across Europe and the United States — is looking to increase its peptide production capacity.
The CDMO plans to invest more than €1 billion over the next three years to build and expand small, medium, and large manufacturing facilities in Europe and the U.S. to meet the needs of customers for both injectable and oral peptides.
Michael Quirmbach, CEO of the CordenPharma Group, told Pharma Manufacturing that the peptide market is “booming with a lot of demand driven by GLP-1s” and the need for high-quality active pharmaceuticals ingredients for peptide-based medicines.
“There’s a significant uptick in the peptide market,” Quirmbach said. “New projects and products are being developed and there’s simply not enough capacity. That’s the reason for our investment.”
With its expansion, CordenPharma’s goal is to provide a seamlessly integrated supply of peptide-based drug substance, subcutaneous formulations, and oral peptide drug products across its global facilities network.
Of the more than €1 billion it plans to spend over the next three years on infrastructure, CordenPharma will invest over €500 million to build a greenfield site for small to large-scale peptide development and manufacturing at Getec Park in Muttenz, Switzerland, near Basel where the CDMO’s headquarters is located.
The Swiss site will feature over 5,000 liters of solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) reactor capacity to support small-, medium-, and large-scale peptide production for both GLP-1 and non-GLP-1 peptide therapies. Facility construction and qualifications are slated to take place between 2025 and 2027, with commercial operations expected to begin in the first half of 2028.
Quirmbach said the CDMO took its time before selecting Switzerland for the site, looking at multiple countries. However, he noted that CordenPharma’s decision to locate the plant near Basel was based on several factors, including existing infrastructure such as large-scale utilities to support multi-purpose chemical manufacturing, as well as access to a talent pool of highly skilled professionals.
In parallel to the Swiss capital expenditure, CordenPharma is expanding existing lines and building a new greenfield production area at its Boulder, Colorado facility, with a more than $500 million investment in both mid- to large-scale peptide manufacturing. The expansion will more than double its SPPS reactor capacity by adding an additional 25,000 liters, with the goal of total reactor capacity of more than 42,000 liters by 2028.
CordenPharma, which was acquired by private equity firm Astorg in 2022, has more than 3,000 employees and generated sales of €854 million in its 2024 financial year. With its expansion plans in place, the company’s goal is to exceed €1 billion in sales for its peptide platform by 2028 while “solidifying” its position as one of the largest peptide manufacturing CDMOs.
New business, tariffs
Last month, biopharma company Viking Therapeutics announced a multi-year, $150 million manufacturing agreement with CordenPharma for the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and final finished product supply for Viking’s VK2735 obesity drug candidate.
Under the agreement, Viking will make prepayments to CordenPharma totaling $150 million from 2025 to 2028. The deal includes dedicated manufacturing lines and an annual fill-finish capacity of 100 million autoinjectors, 100 million vial-syringes, and more than one billion oral tablets — with the option to expand capacity.
“We’re doing the API and the drug product, which includes the injectable and the solid dosage part,” Quirmbach said. “For the API, we have been working on development in Frankfurt [Germany] and we’ll do some manufacturing in the U.S. but later also in Switzerland. The drug product will be done in Caponago [Italy] and in Plankstadt [Germany] — later in Lisbon [Portugal] even.”
Asked about the potential impact of U.S. tariffs, Quirmbach acknowledged that he’s “worrying a little bit” that such protectionist trade policies could negatively affect CordenPharma’s business in 2025. He said the CDMO has convened an internal task force to “assess what we could be doing” to potentially mitigate the effects of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
“The challenge is we don’t know what’s coming,” Quirmbach said. “Would the tariffs be only on finished drug products, for example? Or would the tariffs be even on APIs? And would the tariffs be on APIs for commercial only, or would they also be on clinical?”
Given the uncertainty with tariffs, Quirmbach said an open question remains whether U.S. customers “might be a bit more hesitant” to send business to Europe. While CordenPharma’s Colorado facility focuses on API peptide manufacturing, the company does not have any drug product capacity in the U.S., he added.
CordenPharma is manufacturing injectables and tablets in Europe. “I can’t transfer this” work to the U.S., Quirmbach noted.
